Local elections 2026: Results show stark differences between London and rest of England

The results of the local election in London have sent historical records tumbling, while revealing stark differences in how the parties fared in the capital compared with the rest of England.

While Labour’s results in the capital are widely seen as disastrous, with a net loss of more than 350 seats , Sir Keir Starmer’s party successfully defended a higher percentage of its seats than it did elsewhere, and remains the party with the highest number of local councillors in the capital, with 695.

In contrast, Reform UK won a much lower proportion of seats in which it stood candidates than it managed outside London, according to Press Association analysis.

Sir Keir Starmer’s party has won 67% of the council seats in the capital that it held just before the elections took place.

This compares with a win rate of 30% for seats it defended outside London.

Reform has won just 5% of the seats in the capital in which it fielded candidates, compared with a rate of 43% for the seats it contested across the rest of England.

Just 79 of its over 1,400 seats won in the elections in England came in London, according to the Standard’s own analysis.

It won Havering, but missed out on its targets of Bexley and Bromley, where the Tories held off their challenge.

Other parties have seen contrasting fortunes inside and outside the capital, with the Greens winning 19% of seats in London, in which it stood candidates, higher than the 10% it managed in the rest of England.

The Greens now have 297 seats in London, a net gain of 248 in the number of its councillors.

The party won control of councils in London for the first time in the party’s history, securing majorities at Hackney, Lewisham and Waltham Forest,
The Conservatives won 46% of the seats they defended outside London, while the party saw a net increase of 6% in its number of councillors in the capital compared with just before polling day.

It still remains the second largest party across the capital, with 407 seats overall.

The results show clearly how people in the capital voted for a wider range of parties than ever before, with nearly four in 10 council seats (39.3%) won by someone other than Labour or the Conservatives.

This is more than double the equivalent figure at the 2022 local elections (14.1%) and is the highest percentage of seats not won by either Labour or the Tories in the modern history of local government in London, which began when the current system of councils was established in 1964.

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Of the 1,817 seats up for grabs in the capital this year, the Greens won 16.3%, the Liberal Democrats 13.4%, Reform 4.3% and Aspire 1.8%.

Labour won 38.3%, down from 63.6% in 2022 and its lowest figure since 2006 (36.8%).

The Conservatives won 22.4%, up very slightly from 22.2% in 2022.

Records have also been broken for the number of councils where no party won enough seats to have a majority.

More councils in London have been left in no overall control by this set of results than at any local election in modern history.

Labour has a majority on just nine of the capital’s 32 borough councils, down from 21 in 2022 and the party’s lowest number since 2006, when it won seven.